Trainers Slimmer Low weiß Bordeaux Stadil Hummel AFZtt

Recommended Posts

I intend for this to be a very basic sort of guide. Not so much a cookie cutter template, but a generalist sort of guide to give people ideas.

The Servile is a very powerful class, but also difficult to play as it requires thinking, and lots of it. No slacking off with this build. No powerful army of creations to cover the slack. Just you, and maybe one or two creations depending on the situation or your comfort level.

There are three variances with the Servile. Melee oriented, mental magic oriented, and battle magic oriented. All three are similar, but require a slightly different build. Which way you go is up to you really, and what you find comfortable as your play style. Mental magic is the backbone of any good Servile build, so be prepared to spend lots of points on that. Mental magic as a direct assault or as a support skill is up to you. Mental magic is the strongest form of attack in the game, but also difficult to play well. It requires a devious and cunning mind.

First off, stats. What to do and why. How does one prepare for the challenge?

Your physical stats are not as easy as they appear. For a purely magical Servile, strength isn't as important as intelligence. You can actually get by with rather lowish strength, if you are careful. You could wear robes. Your melee attacks will connect, should you have to melee, and your hit rate will be great, but you will be somewhat vulnerable to physical assaults. For a melee oriented servile, strength and endurance are key. About 10 in each, more with items, and you should be ok.

Endurance... For any build, melee or magic, you should pump endurance. 10 is a good target, higher is better, and there are items to raise it for troubled times. For any build, the key to the Servile's turtle like tenacity is endurance. You want a lot of hit points. This can even overcome a lack of armor, and, with the right items to provide resists and stun, you will be a tough nut to crack.

Stadil weiß Bordeaux Slimmer Low Hummel Trainers

Dexterity. This can either be neglected or raised. If I am going for a melee oriented build, I raise this. I'll look at my missile skill, and see which is cheaper to raise. Dex or missile weapons. And then I'll raise one or the other. High dex is important for missile weapon damage. You can achieve close to 200 damage a shot with an acid baton if you play your cards right. Other batons will do even more. If you are playing a dedicated missile user, you will never stop pumping dex. Personally, I am a big fan of strong daze or mass madness, and then moving in and shooting the place up.

Intelligence. It really depends on the build. A dedicated melee build that only uses mental magic and blessing magic as a backup skill, they will not need much of this, if anything at all. What you get from items should be enough, use healing pods. It is more important to add points to dexterity, strength, or endurance for a melee oriented build. A spell caster servile can never have enough intelligence. There will never be enough essence, never enough energy, so you still suck down pods at an alarming rate.

And the skills that pay the bills.

Melee skills are valuable for any type of Servile build, but a magic oriented Servile wont need much, and can get most from items. You won't need missile weapons if you are magic heavy. Just the defensive skills, parry and quick action, and a few left over points in melee weapons. For combat builds, the more the better. Both melee weapons and missile weapons should be cranked out the wazoo. Use batons and swords at the right moments, and you will breeze through the game.

Hummel Low Trainers Slimmer weiß Stadil Bordeaux

Magic skills. For a magic oriented build, you want lots of battle magic, and every spare point you can muster should go into mental magic. Blessing magic is nice, but you can boost it through items, use pods or spores, etc, so it is a low priority. On my last Servile game, which I completed, blessing magic wasn't level 9 until I was near level 50. Healing magic should be just enough to get regeneration and banish affliction, so you can cure lightning aura damage. Your livelihood will center around mental magic though, and you can never have enough of that, for any Servile build. If you can, get it past nine, and into the teens. Especially so in G5. The more the better. In the twenties is even better and will greatly increase your survival in mobs and tight spots. I haven't done it, but I'd venture a guess that mental magic could be raised to 30 now rather easily, because of items.

Battle magic can be neglected if you are going the melee route, but with items, battle magic should be just high enough to cast acid shower. Incredibly useful and powerful. Give everything a good dip before you start charming and terrorising. When stuff is no longer under your influence, it will be mostly dead. Easy pickings. If a dedicated build, push battle magic into the teens, or as high as you can get it to go, even if it means neglecting your other skills a bit.

Spellcraft is of vital importance to any Servile build. It helps your mental magic. Raise it when you can, or if you notice your spells aren't as effective if you move to a new area.

Blessing magic is nice, but it is more useful for a summoner build.

Shaping skills can be achieved through items. You can place points here, if you want, and 2 points placed in battle shaping is a prudent investment. It will allow you to get a war trall later. But you could get those two points from items, take those precious skill points, and place them into other skills.

Leadership and mech skills shouldn't be ignored. 8 leadership and 12 mechanical are good targets. In fact, in the beginning of the game, I'd shoot for 12 mech right away. Easy experience, and it will allow you to loot useful and much needed items.

Well, you have all these skills, but what do you do with them?

Use mental magic to scramble anything remotely threatening, burn down the mobs with battle magic, shoot anything that moves, and stab anything that gives you the stinkeye.

Mental magic requires the use of tactics and thought. Terror will be a skill that you will use right up to the end of the game. It is useful for mob management, containing hostile and dangerous monsters that could squish you in melee, and having a direct effect on the flow of battle. You can not control a charmed creation, but you can drive a creation to the next mob over with terror and charm them. Domination, and later, charm, will be your bread and butter. For any Servile build. Even for a melee build, it is better to have allies. Pepper the mob with charm spells, and then start shooting. Sow chaos, and then unleash hell. Daze and strong daze are useful for 'pausing' a battle. Charmed creations can't be controlled, so daze will have some drawbacks. Hit monsters will regain control. So watch your toes and be alert to battlefield changes. Mass madness has been nerfed a bit, but is still very useful.

Never bite off more than you can chew. Always have an escape plan in order. Have your aggression backed with the right firepower. Know which enemies resist what. Be patient. Turtle down. The key to Servile play is knowing that if you are careful, you can outlast anything that the game throws at you. Load up your resists. Get a runed ruby? Go to the nearest forge and drop it in your armor. Your belt. Early on, everything is disposable. Get a fyora skin cloak? Drop a runed ruby in it and fire is no longer much of a concern. Build up your acid resists. Keep changes of good clothing handy and stashed in a easy to reach place. If you are going into a place with a lot of lightning damage, go and change your clothing to something with more lightning resist. Keep cloaks that have elemental resists and then plug them with the right items to boost that resist even further. Keep a pair of vat shoes or boots for when they might be needed, plan ahead, and dress accordingly. Develop a spike suit for fighting golems or other hard hitters that you might not be able to control very well.

Spellcraft is vital to any character build since it helps all spells including healing craft ones.

Take advantage of the terrain. Whenever you face more than 2 opponents that aren't under your control or dazed consider retreating to where you can't be swarmed. You can't use mental spells on golems, constructs, and a few other opponents so for those places you need to fight them yourself. Don't face more than 2 to 1 in a fight.

Submission creatures are a pain for any build since stun resistance doesn't guarantee that you will survive their attack. Try to only face one stunner at a time by staying out of the other's range or line of sight. This is a good place for creations to draw fire and missle attacks.

I used dominate a little bit and I was dissappointed to discover that when a charmed target was killed by the enemy, which is possible during a big swarm, you don't get any experience for it. Or at least it seemed that way, I'm not sure if I was too high a level for the mob. Whats the deal here in G5?

Usually you get credit for enemies that die from acid, poison, or lightning aura, but I had a few times where I didn't. It's worse in swarm fights where there are others dealing damage besides your character and creations.

I'm pretty sure that credit for a death from ongoing damage goes to whoever scored the last hit. If it was you or one of your creations, you get experience; if an NPC ally or a charmed monster, no such luck.

I've just been playing as an agent in geneforge 3, even with 20 int, and 1500 spell energy, I was still frequently having to run away to recharge, surely a magic heavy servile would be in a worse position?

Playing as agent in the G1-G3 games, I also found essence and spell energy big issues. That hasn't been a problem in G5. That's really cool, too. You can focus on what you're doing instead of running back to town between skirmishes. In G5, I can last a good long while before even gobbling an essence pod. In G1-G3, I tried to balance magic with melee/missile with the agent, who wound up being as strong later in the game as a guardian (for me, anyway). Agent is a powerhouse at the end. But it was really difficult early on.

I'm thinking that servile might be fun to try after reading this thread. I will miss the cool-looking sorceress outfit, though.

I'd love it if somebody would put together a sorceress build guide because I suspect it will be a popular character because of magic/shaping angle. Also, it would be nice to see if I'm even on target with what I'm doing.

"Waiting for the right items" was an excellent strategy in G4, because the best creations didn't have much time to level up anyway. In G5, it doesn't work as well. All the best creations can be shaped by level 25 or so, without skipping entire segments of the game. Some other good ones become available around level 10. That gives you 30 to 45 player level ups, or about 15 to 30 level ups creations are likely to get while they follow you around.

Additionally, shaping skill no longer has a 10-cap so the shaping bonus items are just as helpful for strong-shaping classes who have already invested in those skills.

Finally, the servile gets 6/7 the essence of the sorceress and also has less Intelligence (I forget if it's 1 or 2 points less).

So a servile certainly *can* shape, but he *won't* do it as well as a sorceress, with or without the items. He will be slightly worse at making disposable creations, and significantly worse at making permanent allies.

Low Stadil Slimmer weiß Trainers Hummel Bordeaux I like the sorceress... Don't get me wrong. I like her a lot actually. But she isn't the class I had hoped for her to be based on the missing slot in G4. If you play as a strong shaper sort, not enough essence to pound enemies with spells. If you play as a strong agent or spellcaster type, and rely on items to shape with, then you really are no different than an agent / infiltrator / servile type.

It is in my opinion that the sorceress spreads her self to thin in achieving power. Every point she spends in shaping, she robs power from her magical abilities. If she shapes from items and boosts her magic to effective levels, her creations are little more than decoys, distractions, or a mop up crew.

The shock trooper can get all of the best creations early enough, have more essence, get more energy, and can cast spells. If you want strong creations, as is your point Slarty, then you want a class with strong shaping ability, rather than the piddling average. A sorceress raising a shaping ability to 10 (and no waiting for items, remember, as you stated) would hamstring her self to the point of disability.

Take away all the items and high powered goodies, and then we have a different argument. I'd probably say the sorceress is a good bit stronger than the servile, and possibly the perfect class. Items are the deal breaker, just as they were in G4. In G4, the servile was so freakishly overpowered that it was just obscene.

I made the same argument in G4. The items break the game. Which is why the shock trooper has a new lease on life and is incredibly dangerous.

I believe that Vlish simply meant to say that the Servile can easily get the strongest creations, and while his creations might not be every bit as good as, say, a Lifecrafter's or a Sorceress's, it won't make that much of a difference. My GF4 Servile was pretty good at Shaping. I mean, c'mon. A servile who's good at both magic and melee, and who can make Ur-Drakons and Eyebeasts? That *is* freakish. If War Tralls are as good as people say, he may be even more powerful in GF5.

War tralls aren't overpowered compared to drakons or gazers, and there isn't really a war trall answer to the ur-drakon or eyebeast. War tralls are just able to hold their own against the other top-tier creations now, since they've got decent resistance to everything and physical damage is always reliable if not always the most effective.

Really you get a tradeoff. Drakons and gazers will be much more effective sometimes and much less effective other times, depending on the type of attack you're facing and your enemies' resistances. War tralls are just reliable. In a game that rewards you pretty heavily for keeping creations around for a while, that works well. (It would work even better if you could start making tralls earlier, but you can't.)

—Alorael, who also thinks G5 makes the shaping-heavy classes better at shaping than G4 did, mostly by way of not capping shaping skills and giving more time for leveling creations. Serviles can still make powerful creations if they want, but they'll be decidedly inferior to a lifecrafter/shaper's.

The only generic enemy that will hassle the War Trall is the Pylon. This old school style of pylon is rare. It is the Wingbolt & Gazer's shining moment. However, Drakons and other fire/ice creations will have *way* more trouble with it than a War Trall will. (It resists physical at 60%, while the Trall resists its attacks at 40%. Drakons & company resist its attacks at 30% or lower and do 10% or 0% regular damage to it!)

Wat Tralls are not "just reliable" -- there are enemies that do not resist physical, but do resist all sorts of magical attacks. War Tralls shine against Gazers and Eyebeasts! Whereas Gazers actually have trouble with enemy War Tralls, since they have no armor whatsoever.

Drakons on the other hand are not in the same league. They are good, but have no real advantages over Wingbolts. Basically any enemy that the Drakon has good resistance against (i.e. a fire attack user) also has resistance to the Drakon's attack.

I would say: War tralls and gazers/wingbolts will be quite effective most of the time, super effective on rare occasions and ineffective on rare occasions. Drakons will often be quite effective, and will sometimes be ineffective.

I like the sorceress... Don't get me wrong. I like her a lot actually. But she isn't the class I had hoped for her to be based on the missing slot in G4. If you play as a strong shaper sort, not enough essence to pound enemies with spells. If you play as a strong agent or spellcaster type, and rely on items to shape with, then you really are no different than an agent / infiltrator / servile type.

It is in my opinion that the sorceress spreads her self to thin in achieving power. Every point she spends in shaping, she robs power from her magical abilities. If she shapes from items and boosts her magic to effective levels, her creations are little more than decoys, distractions, or a mop up crew.

I'm playing the sorceress as a shaping sorceress. It was something I have wanted to do from my first Geneforge game. I have added creations as I went along, partly to experiment to see how they work and partly to help fight and partly because it makes the game more fun to have pets. Early on, so much gets pumped into mechanics and leadership that I had little left over to put into primary stats or anything else. I pumped strength and intelligence. When I kept dying I put a point into Spellcraft even though it was a penalty later on. That's one point I couldn't train in. At about level 25/26, I did the math. I think mech was up to 11 and leadership 9 by then. I had put 67 out of 140 skill points into leadership and mechanics. I'm at level 34, just about 1/2 through the game and I don't have any shaping items. These may be in places that I can't touch yet. I'm able to survive better now because I'm not putting skill points into mech/ldrshp any more. I just noticed that pumping spellcraft/magic has made me significantly stronger.

There are a number of factors as to why I don't feel successful.
(1) I'm a mediocre player. I find the Geneforge games difficult in general. I usually survive on a good walkthrough and this message board. G5 is very difficult for me on easy. Easy and normal don't seem all that different.
(2) I play for fun. I'm game for challenges, but every round for a long stretch has been an uphill battle. It's not feeling fun right now.
(3) I'm too weak to go into the areas that may have the best items to make me stronger. For example, I would love the gruesome charm, but the shades were overpowering.
(4) Nerfing of some important spells/stats in G5. I've read all the threads about speed needing to be nerfed, and I get how the really good players are feeling. They want more of a challenge. People like me... well, there's only so much reloading and restarting I'm going to do. Hard to hit and run without speed. I used to do that even with creations. Not being able to build my character to account for the boost in poisonous creatures has hurt. Endurance does not do that anymore. I'm having to wear poison resistance instead of stat boosting items. Slarty tells me in another thread that poison/acid aren't important and I'm doing something wrong. Maybe they aren't and maybe I am. Don't get me wrong. There is probably many other better ways to go about playing this game. I am a so-so, maybe average or maybe less than average player. But as a player of previous Geneforge games, I'm tending to play like I did before and it's not working. Sometimes the only way you know something doesn't work is to fail. Unfortunately.

Normal difficulty. (For kicks and giggles, and because I am testing something out right now) Dexterity is 10, with items, a shield and some sandals adding to my dex. Missile weapon skill is 5 at the moment, and no where near as high as it could be.

Venom batons against an un-armored foe have a wide range of damage. At this point, even though I am relatively unskilled, I have a damage range of about 60 to 90. In the shot above, you can see what I did when I shot the poor mage fellow. You can also see what my clawbug, Mr. Pinchy, is doing. When I raise my missile skill a bit more, I'll be able to clear 100 damage a shot with a puny venom baton, before physical resists and or armor. The poison damage is long and lingering against many foes. In my inventory, I have an acid baton too. In time, I'll be able to clear about 150ish average damage with it. (With some shots clearing 200) Take note, I am not blessed in this shot. This is intentional. I wanted to show the damage output as it was. With blessing, the damage goes up considerably.

Missile weapons are powerful, and are great even with out a ton of investment. It is a good way to conserve essence and spell energy to extend your jaunts out into the boonies.

Any well balanced melee character, or even well balanced spell caster will benefit from having a back up plan involving missiles.

War tralls are just reliable. In a game that rewards you pretty heavily for keeping creations around for a while, that works well. (It would work even better if you could start making tralls earlier, but you can't.)

You can make War Tralls by your first visit to Gazaki-Uss (the diplomatic mission for Alwan). The area with the War Trall canister is not key locked - it just needs enough living tools. And if you have been conservative with them, you should have enough to spare.

Stadil Low Trainers Slimmer weiß Bordeaux Hummel I am pretty sure I had a War Trall by level 25 or so. He and my Wingbolt have been my most effect damage causers in the second half of the game (which because of work I cannot play as fast as I used to bang these out in the old days).

I have to say I really, really like Rotdhizons. 12 AP, good damage sinks, and essentially immune to poison (which appears to be a favorite attack in this game). I was well into Traygen lands before I could afford one of these in my entourage though.

Rotdhizons are quite good. They're also more expensive than War Tralls, though, so they'd better be. I think the War Tralls are very slightly more durable, but the rots definitely have better damage output against anything that's not almost completely immune to their acid. And the rots have the advantage of being able to run down literally everything they face.

—Alorael, who thinks maybe this line of discussion needs to move elsewhere. Rotdhizons are neat, but they aren't serviles.

The only generic enemy that will hassle the War Trall is the Pylon. This old school style of pylon is rare. It is the Wingbolt & Gazer's shining moment. However, Drakons and other fire/ice creations will have *way* more trouble with it than a War Trall will. (It resists physical at 60%, while the Trall resists its attacks at 40%. Drakons & company resist its attacks at 30% or lower and do 10% or 0% regular damage to it!)

Wat Tralls are not "just reliable" -- there are enemies that do not resist physical, but do resist all sorts of magical attacks. War Tralls shine against Gazers and Eyebeasts!
Whereas Gazers actually have trouble with enemy War Tralls, since they have no armor whatsoever.

Drakons on the other hand are not in the same league. They are good, but have no real advantages over Wingbolts. Basically any enemy that the Drakon has good resistance against (i.e. a fire attack user) also has resistance to the Drakon's attack.

I would say: War tralls and gazers/wingbolts will be quite effective most of the time, super effective on rare occasions and ineffective on rare occasions. Drakons will often be quite effective, and will sometimes be ineffective.

War trolls are like.. 2-hit-KO with Gazers =)
They have 0 magical resistance. Their a double-edged sword.

Incorrect. War Tralls have a d5 physical die, Gazers have a d10 kill spell. Even with the 40% damage reduction, that's still more. However, Hei is partially right, as some NPC war Trall's do, in fact, have zero Magic resistance.

Nope, you're wrong also. In G5, the War Trall's missile attack is d8. That's an average of 4.5 damage, versus an average of 5.5 for the Gazer kill. Take 40% off of that and you get 3.3 per attack for Gazers, versus 4.5 for Tralls. Tralls still win.

Not true. It's quite possible to daze enemy gazers, with the exception of a few named ones.

Speaking of which, I tried to take out the beastie in Lerman's Pass with my 3 tralls. After about 4 tries, I gave up. I've completed everything through the Storm Plains but have yet to move into the Dera Reaches. Lerman's Pass is one of the hardest areas in the game, right? (crosses fingers in hope)

Lermans pass is one of the harder places but outside of the challgene area it is not the hardest.

Out of curiousty, how are you trying to defeat the thing?

Personally I lure it out of the turret room then I pin it into a corner. I Poision, Acidify it. My main charcter just does mass healing. Normally 3 tralls is enough but I don't play on torment. If you have the essence shape a couple of courrepted thahds. They rock.

Kinda. When you first reach it, it is surely the hardest area in northern Terrestia (save Gorash-Kel and Sammanns place). But you can beat it after getting access to Storm Planes in a short while. I went in with a level 35 Warrior with one Rotghroth, and a Cryo/regular drayk. I went through an Acid Wand, a terror wand, and a few major healing spores, but it went off without a reload. IIRC, you mentioned your playing through on Torment for the first time, so that's probably why it seems so much harder then before (I'm also used to playing on harder levels)

Not useless, but not as great as other high-tier creations. The fire creations are good, but more expensive. I would stick with mostly battle creations, and maybe throw in some magic/fire for a good mix, but magic and fire are too expensive to be the main force of your army, or at least that's what I've found on torment.